It was pure chance that she was on the flight. The misunderstandings had begun in Boston when she missed her first flight. In Newark, she missed her connection. Both times she was forced to take a later flight, and by the time she finally boarded the plane to Cleveland, her schedule had been thrown into such disarray that her travel plans had been delayed by almost a day. Despite these delays, Dorothy Dwyer “didn’t seem out of spirits.” En route to her sister’s home in Reno where she intended to meet her fiancé, she appeared, at least according to the pilot who flew her to Cleveland, “to be looking forward to a pleasant trip and visit.” Dwyer’s pleasure in her trip was undoubtedly shaped by its novelty. While flying is routine today, only a very few Americans had the opportunity to fly in 1933. But, if flying was rare and significantly more luxurious in the past, it was also unaccompanied by the extensive rituals we all know and perform each time we fly: the removal of our shoes and belts, the searching of our luggage, and the confiscation of potentially lethal items. So when Dwyer and her fellow passengers boarded their flight in Cleveland on October 10, 1933, no one thought much about the passenger who was carrying what would later be described as a brown paper package. Just over North Liberty, Indiana, the pilot, Richard Tarrant, radioed that all was well, but within minutes, the plane “slipped out of control at an altitude of about 1,000 feet and shot toward earth at a terrific speed.” According to Esther Stroup, an eyewitness on the ground, a terrific explosion occurred “followed by a flash in the sky.” The ensuing crash resulted in the death of the plane’s three crew members and all four passengers.

Early stewardesses were often selected for their looks and youth.

Investigating the Crash The reasons for the crash were not readily apparent. Although the plane, a Boeing 247, was new, it had already logged several thousand miles. The pilot and co-pilot were “thoroughly experienced” and the plane boasted a stewardess who was, as was standard at the time, also a trained nurse. The airline that operated this flight, United Air Lines (the company had not yet changed its name to United Airlines), had a good safety record. Yet all of these factors were insufficient to prevent the deaths of those aboard the flight. Within days of the crash, technicians from Northwestern University had been brought in to examine the wreckage, and on October 14th, a vice president of United Air Lines formally announced that “all available evidence leads to the conclusion that [the crash]...was caused by a high explosive, presumably located in the...cargo space and toilet section aft of the passenger cabin.” Because the plane carried, as almost all passenger flights did, US mail and “interstate shipments,” the federal government was called in to help investigate. Since 1926, the National Transportation Bureau (NTSB) had been tasked with investigating air crashes (between 1940 and 1974, the Civil Aeronautics Board’s Bureau of Aviation Safety held this responsibility before it was transferred back to the NTSB, where it still resides today).

A Boeing 247 with the United Air Lines logo

Investigators, both from Northwestern University and the federal government, came to suspect early on that an individual or individuals had planned and then caused the explosion. After carefully studying “charred fragments of wreckage...under microscopes,” the investigative team concluded that “the evidence – pieces of twisted fuselage, the side of a bottle, bits of passengers’ luggage – bore stains which federal investigators believe...might have been caused by nitro-glycerine or gunpowder.” Adding to this evidence was the belief of investigators that the fuselage had “twisted and torn in a manner that indicated a blast.” Testimony from witnesses on the ground reinforced this belief as almost all of the witnesses spoke of an explosion that occurred before the plane began its uncontrolled descent. But who had caused the accident and why? The fact that one of the four passengers, Emil Smith, carried a rifle on board was briefly investigated only to be dismissed as insignificant. Smith, who was a competitive marksman, was believed to have simply been transporting a rifle that he used for sporting purposes only. Further bolstering this belief was the fact that Smith was scheduled to compete in a shooting contest at the North Shore Gun Club in Chicago. Federal investigators now began to speculate instead that the explosion had been caused by a “time bomb,” one that had been planted on the plane by someone who had not then boarded the plane himself or herself.

On September 16, 1920, a bomb, probably set by anarchists, exploded on Wall Street.

Terrorism in the 1930s Although today, investigators who suspect that a plane crash was caused by a bomb would jump to the conclusion that terrorism was involved, investigators in the 1930s did not make or explore this connection in depth. This was not, however, because the idea of terrorism was unknown in the 1930s. On the contrary, the early twentieth century had been characterized by numerous terrorist incidents. But, by the 1930s, at least in the United States, these terrorist acts had come to be seen as distant memories. In fact, Jacob Hardman, a leading trade unionist and journalist during the interwar period, argued that terrorism was not only “irrelevant and unnecessary,” it was also “outmoded as a revolutionary method.” In Europe, where political unrest and instability were rampant and in Africa and Asia, where nationalists had begun to challenge colonialism, terrorism was not uncommon in this period. But, in the United States, although investigators briefly speculated that “theories of anarchy [sic]...were suggested in the investigation,” the idea that innocent civilians had been targeted in a terrorist attack was simply not seen as a viable explanation for the explosion that occurred on this United Air Lines flight. Moreover, even if investigators had been inclined to believe that a terrorist or terrorist organization had caused the explosion, the fact that that no one ever stepped forward to claim responsibility for this accident made it seem unlikely. When an inquest was held in nearby Valparaiso, Indiana shortly after the crash, it resulted in an “open verdict...[which held that] the cause of the accident was unknown.”

Today investigators do much more thorough reconstructions.

This inability to draw firm conclusions as to the exact cause or, more importantly, the identity of the perpetrator or perpetrators, was undoubtedly hampered by the limited technology available. Lacking black boxes and extensive experience upon which to construct potential theories, investigators remained at a loss as to the specifics of how and why this Boeing 247 had crashed. Unlike today when investigations into plane crashes can take a year or more, the investigation was also stunningly truncated, spanning only a few weeks. The frequency of plane crashes – it was more dangerous to fly than travel by train – also contributed to the short investigation. Before the month was out, other plane crashes would claim the attention of the press and the nation’s limited investigators. All of this, however, was probably poor consolation for Dorothy Dwyer’s family; her fiancée who arrived in the Midwest was finally able to collect her body for burial on the day they had planned to marry.